Yesterday Starts Tomorrow Morning

Yesterday Starts Tomorrow Morning is a novel in seventeen movements about consciousness and the worlds it insists on constructing. Its characters share a reality. Each has reasons to believe the others have misunderstood it, and enough intelligence to make the disagreement dangerous. I composed the book as a symphony and gave incompatible convictions room to develop. Philosophy has to live with somebody here. Music interferes, love makes demands, and absurdity has every right to participate. Nobody becomes less human by being right, although several characters would appreciate the arrangement. Their ideas have consequences for people who never agreed to participate in the argument. The voices return, but the listener has changed; something that sounded like wisdom a few movements ago may now require an apology. A convincing argument can still be a way of refusing to listen. The book lets conviction speak at full strength, then leaves the person facing what that conviction permits him to do. I am interested in the moment when understanding begins to cost its owner something. I wanted to see how much of a person’s understanding survives an encounter with another person. I included myself. There was no reason to let the author escape.